Наушники — B&W (Bowers & Wilkins) Px8 McLaren Edition

The Px8 McLaren Edition is a limited colour variant of the Bowers & Wilkins Px8 over-ear wireless headphone, finished in Galvanic Grey with Papaya Orange details taken from the colours of the McLaren racing and road car brand. It is a closed, noise-cancelling design built from leather and aluminium, and it pairs Bluetooth streaming with a wired USB-C audio link.

Key specs that matter

Bowers & Wilkins fits a 40 mm dynamic full-range driver with a carbon diaphragm to each side. Harmonic distortion is quoted below 0.1% at 1 kHz and 10 mW. Wireless connection runs over Bluetooth 5.2 with aptX Adaptive, and the headphone also decodes aptX HD, standard aptX, AAC and SBC. Supported profiles are A2DP for stereo streaming, AVRCP for remote playback control, HFP and HSP for calls, and BLE GATT for low-energy data exchange. A lithium-ion battery gives 30 hours of playback per charge, and a 15 minute charge adds 7 hours. Net weight is 320 g without the carry case. Six microphones are fitted in total, four serving noise cancellation and two dedicated to telephone calls.

Engineering and use context

Noise cancellation is a hybrid system, meaning it combines microphones on the outside of the earcups with others inside them. An ambient pass-through setting feeds surrounding sound into the earcups on demand, and a wear-detection sensor registers when the headphone is taken off or put back on. The USB-C socket handles charging and also accepts digital audio, so the headphone can be connected by cable to a computer or phone as well as used wirelessly. The special edition keeps the mechanical and electronic layout of the regular Px8 and changes the colours and trim, with the grey leather surfaces set off by orange accents.

Pairing

aptX Adaptive, aptX HD and aptX give higher-resolution Bluetooth links with Android phones and other sources whose chips support those codecs, while AAC suits iPhones and iPads and SBC remains the fallback for any Bluetooth device. For sources without Bluetooth, the supplied 1.2 m USB-C to 3.5 mm stereo jack cable connects the headphone to an analogue headphone output, and a second 1.2 m lead terminated in USB-C on either end is also packed. A carry case measuring 189 mm wide, 63 mm deep and 233 mm high comes in the box for travel, so all three accessories stay together with the headphone when it is packed away.

Alternatives

The Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e is another over-ear noise-cancelling wireless headphone from the same brand, using a bio-cellulose driver in each earcup.